When it comes to social shopping, group buying or "deal of the day" services, there doubtless are doubters. "Just a fad," some will say. The argument for why social shopping is not a fad is that it actually might represent the next generation of the local advertising and local promotion business, functions that already exist, already are sizable and would seem to be poised for redefinition as mobile phones, location services and mobile payments become more popular.
As always, being "too early to market" can be fatal. Woot, founded in 2004, currently has over 1.4 million unique monthly visits. Groupon, founded in 2008, has 29.1 million unique monthly visits. . Mercata, another early mover, was shut down in 2001.
LivingSocial is around half the size of Groupon, at 14.3 million unique monthly visits, with 301 US cities to Groupon’s 182. Yeah that’s about five percent of the US population visiting the site monthly.
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